UNM Cancer Center Physician-Scientist Awarded $12.9M Grant to Study Endometrial Cancer

Kimberly Leslie, MD, a professor at The University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been awarded a 5-year, $12.9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Leslie and her research team, which spans six universities, will study all available hormonal regimens to prevent and treat endometrial cancer.

Endometrial cancer is on the rise, Leslie says. It is a cancer of the uterine lining and primarily affects women who are 55 years and older. In recent decades, however, younger women are being diagnosed with it at increasing rates. In 2024, for the first time, more people in the United States died from endometrial cancer than from ovarian cancer.

According to the NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, more than 69,000 people will be diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2025 and almost 14,000 will die from it. In New Mexico, Leslie says that the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center has seen an increase in the number of people diagnosed with this cancer.

If it is found before it spreads to other organs, 95% of people with uterine cancer live for five or more years after their diagnosis, according to SEER. But if the cancer has spread, the 5-year survival rate plummets to less than 20%.

Many people with endometrial cancer can be treated with hormonal therapy, and hormonal therapy can be used to prevent cancer as well. Leslie's research team will test all the available hormonal therapies.

The research team includes scientists from the universities of Iowa, Utah, Kansas, Virginia and California at San Diego. The work is divided into four major projects that are linked in their scope, Leslie says.

She adds that UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center is the parent institution for the grant and that the research team will use the Clinical Research Office and the Biostatistics, Animal Models and Human Tissue Repository and Tissue Analysis shared resources at the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Leslie's team has been working together for more than five years. At UNM, her team includes her laboratory colleagues along with Distinguished Professor Eric Prossnitz, PhD; Professor Carolyn Muller, MD; Professor Jianrong Wu, PhD; and Associate Professor Mara Steinkamp, PhD.

Two years ago, the multi-institutional research team garnered a Translation Science Team grant from the Department of Defense. That grant enabled them to complete the preliminary studies they needed to apply for this NCI grant.

"Our research aims to determine the best agents to use for prevention and for treatment of established cancers," Leslie says.

She explains that the team will look at biomarkers to give insight into which hormonal therapies will be most effective in which people.

"In many cases," Leslie says, "endometrial cancer can be prevented with appropriate hormonal preventive strategies."

The Grant

The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health supported the research reported in this publication under Award Number P01CA278735, Principal Investigator: Kimberly K. Leslie, MD. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.